Area Marines ship out for Camp Lejeune

The 2-year-old girl wasn't about to say goodbye to Daddy, whether theU.S. Marine Corps needed him or not.

"It's a little of both," said Layla's mother, Katie Moore, when askedwhether Shaffer leaving for Camp Lejeune and eventual deployment toItaly was a sad day or a happy day.

"We're sad, but happy, too, because he's getting to do what he wants,"Moore, 23, said.

Shaffer, pal and fellow Marine Corps engineer Cpl. James Barth, and 50other Marine reservists from South Bend's Engineer Company Bravo weredeployed Thursday along with 30 Marines from Battle Creek's EngineerSupport Company to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

According to Master Sgt. Mike Leisure, most of the reservists willspend the next 400 days at Camp Lejeune before eventual deployment toCalifornia, Afghanistan, or other future assignments.

"It's a happy day," said Leisure, who served five tours in Iraq."We're very excited about going."

After stints at Camp Lejeune, Shaffer and Barth are headed to Italy,and eventually Africa where they will help train military units invarious African countries in combat engineering.

"We're going to go to Africa and do ... humanitarian missions andcoalition force training," said Shaffer, 22, of Marion, Ind. "I'vebeen waiting on this for a long time so we're pretty excited."

Barth, 22, of Chesterton, Ind., leaves behind a wife he just married in March.

"She had to work ... she's a fifth-grade teacher," Barth reasoned as towhy his new wife couldn't see him off Thursday.

"Yeah, it's happy," Barth said. "It's nice to get to go do what Isigned up to do. It's kind of sad to be going away. I mean, I missloved ones."

Including mom and dad.

"They said, you go with all your parts, you come back with all yourparts," Barth recalled. "That's all they ask."

As friends and family members watched inside South Bend's ReserveCenter on Kemble Street, the Marines -- most dressed in civilianshirts, T-shirts, jeans, cargo shorts and tennis shoes -- snapped toattention in formation for a roll call before getting on a bus for an18-hour trip to Camp Lejeune.

"It's a little bit of both," Haggerty, a father of two, admitted ofemotions involved over leaving his family.

"It's different this time," he said. "We're ready to get this going.This is what we're trained to do."

Like Lance Cpl. Victor Bustos, a native of Washington state whoenlisted in the Marines after moving to Warsaw.

Bustos is an "1141 electrician ... I plug things in. The grubs like itwhen we show up because they get to charge their laptops, theirphones, and everything else."

After Lejeune, Bustos, 26, a five-year Marine veteran, is headed toCalifornia. Then it's on to Afghanistan.

"I've never been in a war zone," Bustos said. "I'm excited. I won'tbelieve I'm in Afghanistan until I step off the plane."

CNN reported Thursday that President Barack Obama's plan is to haveall U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by 2014.

Two years seemed to be an eternity for some family members who saidgoodbye to their Marine sons on Thursday.

"Absolutely, it worries me. It scares the hell out of me," saidCatherine Toppel, who was among a large gathering to give son-in-lawCpl. Johnathan Belmarez a hearty sendoff, including Belmarez's wife,Alecia, and their two children, Kadynce, 2, and Dominik, 1.

"It's not easy to leave my family," said Belmarez, 25.

"But we still got to keep forces over there," he said. "We've got tokeep rotating till we move out."

Belmarez family friend Sharon Ulrich recalled saying goodbye to herbrother, Glen Lyczynski, before the Marine veteran was shipped off toVietnam in the late 1960s.

"It was really hard to see my brother leave to go off to war," Ulrich said.